This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dwight Greene, 64, a Villa Vie Odyssey passenger from Fort Worth, Texas. He and his wife, Sheila, are travel vloggers. It has been edited for length and clarity.
My wife, Sheila, and I have always loved to travel and have been on plenty of cruises. It was our friends who first told us about the residential ship. In May 2025, we flew to Acapulco, Mexico, and sailed for a week to Mazatlán through Villa Vie Odyssey’s “try before you buy” program.
We loved it so much that we decided we wanted to be a part of it.
Six weeks later, we came home from a separate trip to Europe and had two weeks to pack for the move. We kept our house in Texas.
We had been traveling with Villa Vie Odyssey for over a year.
All Over The World with Dwight and Sheila
We joined the ship in August 2025, when it docked in Yokohama, Japan. I had only been to Tokyo once before, over three decades earlier, so I was excited to return to this part of the world. We flew over with seven giant suitcases.
The day the ship was supposed to arrive in Yokohama, it was raining. We put on ponchos and walked around, trying to see whether we could spot it. We came to a clearing on a bridge overlooking the water, and there she was.
When we finally went aboard, I remember thinking it was the greatest day of our lives.
We found a community aboard
The Villa Vie Odyssey didn’t feel like any other cruise we’d been on.
Every time Amanda publishes a story, you’ll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Stay connected to Amanda and get more of their work as it publishes.
Want more Business Insider in your news feed?
Add BI in Google so our reporting is easier to find when you’re searching for what matters.
What really got us was the people. On other cruises, nobody ever talked to us. It’s like we were invisible. But on the Odyssey, people would come up and say, “Hello, welcome aboard. Let’s introduce ourselves.” We made friends in one week.
A lot of people rotated tables, and we would eat dinner with different people each night. Sometimes we would just be walking by, and someone would say, “Have dinner with us.”
There was a buffet and a sit-down restaurant with tablecloths and silverware. We drank wine every day.
All Over The World with Dwight and Sheila
We put on our own shows, too. I had been a stage actor, so when someone dropped out of a musical, they roped me into it, and it was a blast.
Staying on the ship full time would have been too restrictive for us. We like to bop around. We use it like an aircraft carrier, getting off to do deep dives into other countries as it travels the world.
Then, we’ll come back to our “home,” except it’s in a cruise cabin.
For example, when the ship changed its New Zealand itinerary in March, we got off in Dunedin with two friends, rented a car, and spent a couple of weeks traveling around the country before flying to Melbourne to meet the ship again.
We had already set off on our own
By the time the Villa Vie Odyssey halted operations in Cambodia last week, Sheila and I had already gotten off.
All Over The World with Dwight and Sheila
The first time the ship docked in Sihanoukville in late September, we got off to travel through Cambodia. In early October, we met the ship again in Laem Chabang, near Bangkok, to pick up a few more things from our cabin. That was the last time we were aboard.
By then, everyone knew the ship was having fuel issues, and people had started talking about it more seriously. While in Bangkok, we were also told that several ports would be dropped from the itinerary, leaving the Odyssey at sea with only a brief refueling stop.
With little to no internet expected during that period, and no certainty that we’d be able to get off in time to fly to Singapore for a Royal Princess cruise we had booked months earlier, we decided not to stay aboard.
We got off and traveled around Thailand instead, before making our way to Singapore for our cruise.
The cruise we’re on now is supposed to end in Singapore on November 10, around the time the Odyssey was originally scheduled to arrive. We thought, “They’ll arrive, we’ll arrive, and we’ll just change ships.”
All Over The World with Dwight and Sheila
That was the plan. Then, we got the announcement that the Odyssey was halting operations.
We were fortunate that our travel plans were already in place, so we had somewhere to go. We knew other passengers were in a much harder position.
When we got off in early October, we took the important stuff we needed. I left most of my things on the ship, including a full-size refrigerator and a big-screen TV we put up.
I have been angry before, when I was younger, and I did not like the person it made me. Now, I am a positive person. I try to look for what is good in every situation. My wife and I are both that way — it’s how we go through life.
If the ship is in Singapore when we arrive in mid-November, we’d love to hop back on board. For now, we’re waiting to find out what happens next.